Review Blog

Oct 10 2013

Stay well soon by Penny Tangey

UQP, 2013. ISBN 9780702249945.
(Age: 11+) Warmly recommended. Cancer. Friendships. Hospital. Stevie
would love to have a horse, but her family cannot afford one,
especially now that Dad Ben has gone interstate for work, leaving
Stevie and her mother to cope with her brother, Ryan, who is
becoming increasingly ill. At first Ryan seems to take a lot of time
off school, but when mum takes him to the doctor, she is angered by
the lack of attention he receives. Finally she takes him to
emergency where the lad is transferred to Melbourne to undergo a
series of tests. So begins the round of hospital visits, with mum
and Stevie driving to Melbourne, Stevie angry that she cannot stay
at home. She thinks he is faking it, so finds the visits boring,
until she meets Lara, also confined to the hospital, because she has
cancer.
It is difficult to like Stevie at the start, she is selfish and
unconcerned about her brother, but as the story progresses,
she becomes a fascinating character. Her problems with her peers at
school are well presented, and the growing relationship with Lara
brings Stevie's attention to her brother's illness. It is only when
Dad Ben returns, that she admits to him her fear of dying, after
finding out that Lara is near death.
All readers will be swept along with Stevie's developing awareness
of illness and death as she at first ignores all attempts to apprise
her of the reason for Rhys' growing ill health. Attempts by friends
and mothers of friends, mum and her friend, Ben, along with the
hospital therapist, failed to make her aware, but her friend Lara,
tells her bluntly that she has not long to live. This galavanises
Stevie into action, she asks the girl to be her friend at her
grade five class Grandparents and Friends Day, after going
with her to meet her horse, Finnegan.
A story of acceptance of death and dying, humour abounds in the
relationships Stevie has with her peers. The details of school life
with all of its ups and downs between the children, along with the
teacher, who inadvertently is a source of much glee, are finely
described. The background of mum's friends and her own relationship
with Ben, are very real, not overstated, but there when Stevie needs
them to be. This is a wholly satisfying novel about cancer and its
effects on one young girl.
Fran Knight